Burglarah
It's been a hell of a week to such an extent that the following represents merely a blip on the radar, but still it merits a separate entry...
Gary called me when he got home from work on Monday (27 Feb) around 4:30-ish. We'd been burgled. He'd first noticed that the garage door had been messed with. Then he saw the sneaker prints our stomped-in front door. An empty beer bottle taunted him from the porch bench, I had in fact left it outside the door to be dropped in recycling the next time someone went out. In any case, Feck. :-/
He called 911. The dispatcher advised him to stay out of the house until the police arrived. A half hour passed, so he tried the non-911 police number I keep in my cell. Were the cops in fact on their way? ("They'll get there when they get there.") It's cold - can we go in the house? ("It's up to you.") Wow. Thanks.
We waited in the car. A polite officer showed up about a half hour later. We stayed outside while he searched the house. Closets pulled open, stuff pawed through. Looks like they peeked in the garage and decided it wouldn't be worth the trouble. Most of their energy was spent jacking open a crappy lockbox full of paperwork and contained nothing of consequence. My dresser drawers and jewelry and chotchke boxes had been yanked and open and tossed about. Also the bulb in the front porch light had been broken off.
I don't know whether to be relieved, insulted or what. They took next to nothing. We think it was probably one person on foot looking for small light stuff - cash, guns, jewelry. (We don't keep cash around, expensive jewelry horrifies me, and we don't have guns.) Computers, electronics, untouched. He even left our camera and checkbook unmolested on the kitchen table. At the moment, we're just looking at replacing the front door, which should be covered by insurance. We're amazed that the guy doesn't seem to have smashed anything out of spite. A pair of bunny ears was snapped in half, probably from being yanked out of one of the drawers. We noticed hopefully that Dunstan's Zombie Cheerleading Camp video is missing. \m/\m/ [If you click the link, it's your own fault.]
The cop couldn't belive the balls on the guy to have tried the garage door, then the garage window, then to stomp in our front door within a wide unobstructed view of a busy road in broad daylight. Believe it or not, they actually called in forensics. No fingerprints - they figured he must have been wearing gloves. The forensics chick says that the print on our door matches one found on a house "around the corner" the same day. (Woodcroft/Woodlake/Fayetteville Road.)
But then...
That night I found out that x_creepydoll_x and Phil got burgled in the same day. She lives in one of the apartment complexes along 54 between 55 and Fayetteville Road. It's a few miles away. In their case too, nothing much was taken, but they had a lot of broken glass to clean up and the landlord had to replace their sliding glass door. Grr. As she said, we can't be too surprised at this with the economy the way it is. Cops took forever to show up for them too.
And then...
Another girl in our circle from Morrisville was burglarized within a few days of us, plus there's that person "around the corner," so that makes four in two days. Another friend was the first of a rash of burglaries in her Durham neighborhood a couple of years ago. Turned out to be a ring which Durham PD eventually caught, so who knows.
In all, I'm feeling lucky so far on this one. We haven't ruled out the possibility that it could be someone taking notes with a view to return later with a van and some homies to thoroughly clean us out.
Tomorrow we should have the incident report to give to the insurance company and get us a new front door. We'll also be looking at a security system.